


Campfire Stories

by Born In Captivity- Ineligible to Release (Jashasedai)



Series: Alternate Universe - Tame Racing Drivers [42]
Category: Formula 1 RPF, Formula E RPF, Motorcycling RPF, motogp - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tame Racing Drivers, Doubles of All Characters, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 07:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jashasedai/pseuds/Born%20In%20Captivity-%20Ineligible%20to%20Release
Summary: In an AU where a secret is used as Racing Drivers, the young males, the colts, as they are called, very much resemble the young men they will grow up to match.When the teenage colts at Ferrari experience a power outage, they do what teenagers everywhere do- compete to tell the scariest storyYou'll never guess which story wins.





	Campfire Stories

**Author's Note:**

> Notes Beginning:  
> This is part of the Tame Racing Drivers AU. Read the series summary.
> 
> The basics are these- All professional racing drivers and riders have double who do the actual racing. The doubles are kept in stables as livestock until it is time to race. They are telepathic and form a telepathic bond with the human who shares their name.
> 
> In this story, the young drivers and riders who will someday be bonded to and racing under the names of Fernando Alonso, (etc, see tags) are experiencing a power outage in the stable where they live. Like the teenage boys they resemble, they decide the best thing to do will be tell scary stories.
> 
> The stories they tell reflect the misinformation they have been given to keep them from resisting their imprisonment and slavery. They also reflect their values as a society.

Racer Name (Name Means-) **Human's Name**

Merlin (Hawk With Grey Wings) **Andre Lotterer**

Puma (Stepping Over the Bodies of His Enemies) **Juan Pablo Montoy** a

Tweety (Thoughtful Friend) **Sam Bird**

Duende (Little Brightly Coloured Spirit) **Dani Pedrosa**

X (The Most of All) **Jorge Lorenzo**

Alondra (Happiest Athlete) **Fernando Alonso**

Mancha (In Control of Footing) **Felipe Massa**

  
  
  
  


**Campfire Stories**

**Ferrari Stable- 1997**

  
  


The matchable age foals were all in their barracks after the stallions had all gone back to their teams when winter break ended.  The older foals had been matched, or not and moved into the matched stallions’ wing.

The barracks was a large room with cupboards along one side.  Each foal had a two part section. Part of it held their necessities and the other half was a sleeping cupboard.  Every night the handlers came in and closed them into their cupboards for sleep. They couldn’t get out, there were no handles on the inside, but they could send to one another.

Tonight, there was a storm outside.  The winter sky was dark, and they hadn’t been shut in, yet, but the lights had gone off, and they could all hear the fans circulating the air had stopped.  It was getting wonderfully cool in the room, and they were all feeling happy and awake.

The older foals, led by Merlin and Puma rounded everyone up and had them sit in a circle on the ground.

[Let’s tell scary stories!] A little golden brown haired Orange and Yellow Bitone spoke up.  Tweety had been weaned young and moved into the wing young, and was eager to prove he was tough.  He told a story about a Racing Driver whose man was driving for him one day, and he was supposed to pretend to have car trouble and stop, so no one would know the Racing Driver hadn’t been able to drive, but instead he lost control of the car and died.  It was an awful story, but they’d all heard it before. It was too much the reality little Tweety would have to get used to facing, soon.

One of the bigger Blues spoke up.  He was the only one in the group that Duende and X were really in competition with.  In competition to be second to, anyway.

Alondra turned to the other colts.  [I heard once there was a match that was chest high to his racing driver,]  He tapped the edge of his hand on his chest, [so the company cut off the racing driver's legs from the knees down,] He made chopping motions at his knees, [and attached his feet to what was left of his legs.]   
  
[That's not true!] Mancha wailed, covering his visor.   
  
Duende tucked his knees to his chest and put his arms around them.  It couldn't be true...could it? Then he thought about the lead stallion.  And about Niki Lauda, his man, and their terrible burn scars, and how only Grad had been in the burning race car, but both had the scars.

Then Puma started telling his favorite scary story.  The one Duende hated the most. He directed it to Tweety. [Have you ever met a Racing Driver that went outside the fences at a track?]

[No.  No one does that.  The handlers won’t let them.]

[That’s because the handlers are protecting us from what’s out there.]

[Why...what are they protecting us from?]

[The handlers know that any Racing Driver who goes outside the fences at the tracks isn’t going to come back.]  Puma told the wide eyed new foal.

[Puma, don’t tell him that,] Merlin scolded.

The older colt turned on him.  [Have YOU ever met anyone who went outside a fence and came back?]

[Well, no, but that’s because no one’s stupid enough to try it, the handlers would punish anyone who tried.]

[Of course they would, any team stallion is too valuable to waste.]

[What’s out there?] Tweety asked.

[See,] Puma said, [He wants to know.]  He turned back to the younger foal. [Beyond the fences, it’s dark.  There are no track lights out there, and the light fades fast. There are cars out there that are all closed in, with space inside for a driver, but no doors or windows to get through.]

Next to him, Duende felt Alondra’s skin shiver under his coverall.

[You walk and the tracks make no sense.  They branch and branch and sometimes you follow one and end up exactly where you started, but going a different direction, without ever turning around.  Or sometimes, you turn around and a street you passed isn’t there anymore. Or there is nothing behind you but a blank wall.]

[Black birds,] Merlin breathed the oath, [It gets worse every time.]  They’d all heard it every year, but somehow Puma seemed to find fresh new details to add to the horror.

[Then you hear a noise.  Like footsteps. They’re almost the same as yours, but a little faster.  You stop so you can hear them, but there is nothing. You turn around and there is a light, faint and far off, and you can see the figure of a man, standing a ways down the street, holding a catchpole.  The light is behind him, so you can only see his shape, not anything else about him. If this ever happens, don’t call out to him. He isn’t a handler.]

In his head, Duende could hear the out of time footsteps, smell the wet track smell of recently rained on pavement, see the eerie green/white light of the streetlight behind the man, and see his shadow cast on the wet road.

[You’ll turn and walk away slowly, and you’ll hear the footsteps again, but everytime you turn, he’s just standing there.  So you walk faster, and his footsteps are always a little quicker than yours, and every time you turn around he’s not moving, but he’s a little closer.  So you run. No man is faster than you are, we all know that. That’s when you hear the second set of footsteps. Coming up a side street, so you turn a corner, trying to put distance between you and them.  As you turn the corner, though, you see the green light in front of you. There he is.]

Duende’s eyes were tearing up.  How could he get away? There were two of them behind him and one ahead.  He couldn’t fight men with catchpoles.

[One of the men behind you gets a line around your neck.  It pulls tight. So much tighter than it needs to just to lead you.  You choke and gasp, and they drag you into a truck you didn’t see and tie you to the floor.  One of them drives for a little while. He’s a bad driver and it takes longer than it should.  Then the truck stops and they pull you out, and throw you in a cage. You are so close to the kitchens and the medical center you can smell the cooking and the blood.  It is just exactly wide and deep enough to sit on your knees. You have to sit on your knees, because it isn’t tall enough for even a colt to stand, and when you’re on the track, you’ll be a full grown stallion.  They keep you in the cage for days, and you can’t feel your man’s touch. The team will have moved on by now, and taken your man with them. Then, one day they come and pull you out of the cage, and they take you into the room that smells like a medical center, but it doesn’t smell like blood because they are fixing wounds.]

Duende closed his eyes.

[It smells like blood because they’re cutting things up.  You can see things hanging from the ceiling that look like Racing Drivers, if Racing Drivers had no skin.  You know what meat is. It’s the muscles inside animals. The Racing Drivers you can see have have their skin and their muscles peeeeeled off.  Some of them are only frames, some of them have most of their muscles. Some of them are watching you, but something in their minds has been cut and they can’t send, and they can’t move without skin to hold them together, so they can’t gesture for help.  Anyway, they know you can’t help them. You’re here to join them.]

The knees of his orange coveralls felt good on his face.  The fabric was cool and soothing. He looked over where X was lounging back on his elbows, watching the faces of the listeners going through their rictuses of horror.

[The men don’t bother to put you down, first.  They just cut into you and start pulling your skin away.  When they’re done, they take the muscles too. They take your meat, and make it into food to be fed to the humans who live by the track when there aren’t races.  So they have something to eat, until the next time the track opens and they can eat the food the company provides. Maybe when your match comes back the next year to look for you, they’ll even feed you to him.]

Duende’s stomach turned.  The intensity of the violation made him want to vomit.  He HATED this story. He always hated it. He wanted to scream in fear at Puma for telling it, again.

He hated it.

It made him afraid.

Tweety whimpered, and Alondra put a hand on his shoulder and gestured small signs to him.

There was a pause while they all absorbed the horrific events in the story.  The older colts all knew Puma had learned this from a handler, one who had been outside the fence of a track, late, after dark, and had seen all this happen, to a Racer who had disappeared before any of them had been weaned.  His name was Hudson, and he’d left the stable for a race and never come back. They all knew it was true.

[That's nothing,] X growled, and Duende shuddered.  LAST time X had told a story, one of the younger foals had wet his overalls.  [I was in the corner of the yard, you know that spot where you can hear the Redbull herd, if they're close enough? And there was this colt in their yard who was close enough to talk to, and he told me that at Redbull, when they give you your overalls, no matter what color you are, the overalls are all...] He drew the word out and they all leaned close.  He shouted, getting the gestures out in a rush, [Blue and Red AND Yellow!] 

They all screamed.   
  
Duende rocked back and forth with his eyes closed.  It's not real, no one will make you dress like a polytone.  It's not real. He's just lying to scare you. Multicolor doesn't exist.  It doesn't exist.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment.
> 
> If you are having a hard time thinking what to say, please consider the following (feel free to leave your letter of choice.)
> 
> A) I like this  
> B) This is awesome  
> C) I didn't think this was interesting.  
> D) Who are these people?
> 
> Real People don't belong to me.
> 
> This story is fiction and is no reflection on anyone in it. The story does belong to me, as does the AU in which it is set.


End file.
